Herbert Smith Freehills' London Private Equity team,  has advised Antin Infrastructure Partners ("Antin") on the completion of its first deal out of their recently closed Fund II, with the acquisition of BG Group's majority stake in the Central Area Transmission System (CATS) gas pipeline in the UK North Sea and associated infrastructure.

Under the terms of the acquisition agreement, Antin now owns a 62.78% interest in CATS. The consideration is up to £562 million (including a potential deferred amount of £39 million) and the deal closed on 10 July 2014.

CATS comprises a fixed-riser platform linked to the Everest oil and gas platform, a 404-kilometre, subsea pipeline and a two-train onshore gas processing terminal at Teesside. The deal follows the recent recommendation by Sir Ian Wood (in his strategic review of the UK Oil and Gas industry) to seek investment by infrastructure specialists in the North Sea.

The Herbert Smith Freehills team was led by James MacArthur, Head of Private Equity, with specialist advice provided by the wider team of Will Nevin, Leveraged Finance, Henry Davey, Energy  and Isaac Zailer, Tax.
James MacArthur commented, "We are very pleased to have assisted Antin in closing this ground-breaking deal. This is the second deal that the Private Equity team in London has completed for Antin Infrastructure Partners in the last year and it is the first deal to be completed out of their recently closed Fund II. We look forward to continuing to work with Antin in the future."

It has been a busy period for the team in London and across Europe, following a string of other deals for the Private Equity and Leveraged Finance teams, including closing multiple deals for Cabot Square Capital, KKR and Carlyle (amongst others), in recent weeks.

Lambert Energy Advisor and RBC provided corporate finance advice to Antin and CMS provided legal advice to the seller.